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We recently read an interesting article from Campaign regarding last Sunday marking the 100th day of GDPR!

For RGM, everything we do is about delivering GDPR compliant data to your business. It always has been. The new GDPR rules have made a huge different to our business. We are now busier than ever with companies turning to us to manage this process for them. If you would like to see what we can do for you, contact us today!

Call: 01752 764241 | Email: hello@rebeccagarrettmedia.com

If you’ve been hiding under a rock for the past three months, GDPR “replaces the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC and was designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens data privacy and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy.” (Source: www.eugdpr.org).

It’s been causing a stir in every industry years before and months after its introduction; with many organisations still being unsure what it actually means for them. Many are panicking – deleting all data and starting afresh. Others are making the most of the change and embracing the ‘cleaner’ data they now possess. Either way, organisations have to be more transparent about their databases and handle personal data with respect whether it is in regards to a lead, employee or consumer.

To find out how GDPR has been beneficial to Facebook and Google, check out Campaign’s article.

It’s hard to know exactly how it will continue to unfold as no one has been slapped with the fine of €20m or 4% of global revenues yet but if the first 100 days are anything to go by, consumers will continue to get smarter; brands will gain more valuable and meaningful pieces of data; and ‘quality over quantity’ will become one of the most common lines said in an organisation, which can only be a good thing, right?

If you’d like to add meaningful data to your list to combat the cull, then RGM can help you. Not only are we a media agency that has worked with the UK’s most loved titles for over 20 years, we SPECIALISE in gamification marketing.

If you’d like to add meaningful data to your list to combat the cull, then RGM can help you. Not only are we a media agency that has worked with the UK’s most loved titles for over 20 years, we SPECIALISE in gamification marketing.

Using competitions and promotions to engage consumers, leads to quantifiable results AND quality GDPR compliant data. We have worked with brands from every industry and have delivered for all of them, so let us deliver for YOU!

RGM is a media agency with a specialism in promotional competitions which began 20 years ago, sorting through mail-sacks of answers on postcards. Today we are experts in our field and work with some of the best loved brands across the biggest and best of British mainstream media.

Competitions will always be at our core as they continue to deliver exceptional ROI for brands. The valuable content they provide has enabled us to foster an incredible industry network, garner enviable access, and extend our offering to increase the value we provide to the hundreds of brands that work with us.

We are a media agency that has specialised in generating quality data through competitions and promotions, for brands of all shapes and sizes, for more than two decades. We’ve proven our agility time and time again as the market has changed from literally ‘answers on a post card’ to todays’ competitions that we host and promote through targeted programmatic display advertising across the biggest and best of the nation’s media.

We speak to Marketing Directors and business owners about data generation on a daily basis which gives us a unique perspective on the industry. When the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was approved by the EU Parliament in 2016, organisations were given 2 years to comply or face heavy fines. Well that deadline has been and gone but many businesses are still navigating the new data world.

We’ve spoken to numerous brands that, having actively cleared out any data that doesn’t comply with the new reg’s, are experiencing “Post non-GDPR-Compliant Data Cull Despair”. Especially those that have been on a course and followed the checklists only to realise that much of their data doesn’t comply and responses to their “please resubscribe” email have been low. They are now reeling from the blow of having to cull a huge swathe of data that they’ve been diligently gathering and cultivating.

Many others are crossing their fingers and hoping their ‘Legitimate Interest’ basis will hold up. They’ve sent out ‘BTW, our policy has changed…’ emails which were largely ignored.

If you can relate, maybe it would help to have a chat with us. Click here to schedulea 15 to 20-minute call with Sarah, our Director of Client Partnerships, to discuss your strategy for cleansing and rebuilding your list with quality, GDPR compliant, data. Even if you decide not to continue the conversation after our call, you’ll leave with some advice for moving forwards that will make an immediate impact.

This week we had an extra helping hand from Lukasz a Polish student from Europa Training UK Ltd! He learnt the use of social media in a business environment, used scheduling platforms, helped with market research and of course, general admin duties.

We are delighted to let you know that Efteling has been voted BEST THEME PARK (in the world!!) in the ‘Theme Park Insider’ Awards that were announced yesterday.

Theme Park Insider wrote, “Best theme park, Efteling. Knocking off six-time champion Tokyo DisneySea, the Dutch park that’s long been a favorite of themed entertainment designers finally claims the top spot in our ratings. And that’s without help from Symbolica, its ambitious new trackless dark ride that missed the June 30 cut-off for eligibility in this year’s awards by one day”.

The team at RGM are so thrilled for Efteling and happy that we, were the first UK people to ride the Symbolica!

RGM we’re invited to the VIP preview of Symbolica, the latest attraction at Efteling, meaning we were the first U.K. People to ride! A weekend full of surprises, screams and laughter, highly recommended if you are a thrill seeker! If you haven’t been to Efteling yet, you definitely need to.

I’ve just finished reading my latest copy of Campaign, landed on my desk this morning, June 16th issue. We are subscribers, obviously. Its long been on my “to do “ list to email you, but the content of this week’s copy has really spurred me on to finally put virtual pen to digital paper. The whole issue seems to be about DIVERSITY, TRANSPARANCY and DELIVERING IMMEDIATETANGIBLE RESULTS.

Let me introduce you to REBECCA GARRETT MEDIA.

We are a dynamic, small, niche, AWARD WINNING agency, based in Plymouth, in the South West of England. Yes, we are outside the M25. We specialise in promoting brands through competitions and promotions. We are experts in this field and have been doing this for over twenty years. There are tonnes of benefits to what we do: consumer engagement, quantifiable ROI, Brand Awareness and most importantly, the HOLY GRAIL: DATA CAPTURE. We work with over 300 big name brands every year. Our competitions run in print, online and on air. We work with ALL of the major UK Media owners , including ITV, Hearst, Bauer, DMG, News Int etc.

We also know that neither yourself or any of your readers will have heard of us. And this is our frustration.

Firstly, your article on page 5 by the revered Media God that is Martin Sorrell; “Watershed moment for media shops” talks about a “growing number of clients care about getting “the best solution” than working with one shop.” He also talks about brands “wanting to bring together media buying and digital data, and simplify their marketing strategy”.

If I could afford Martins fees I would make him our official spokesperson. He has summed up in two short sentences every single USP for Rebecca Garrett Media, RGM. This is EXACTLY what we do. Sadly, we can’t afford him and we struggle daily to get past the gate keepers and automated systems at the larger agencies and brands that are designed to keep us smaller, creative, nimble agencies out in the cold. It’s all very well for a multi- millionaire to spout this stuff, but it is useless if no one listens or actually adopts the practices he is championing. I could bore you for hours with the excuses, shut doors, acerbic gate keepers, indifferent brand managers, we have to try to get past or to listen to us every day. They either clearly don’t read your paper, or simply couldn’t care less. More importantly, their bosses, the ones who set the blueprint strategy for these power houses that spend all this money in your “top earners” lists weekly are simply NOT INTERESTED in listening to, working with, or getting anywhere near us smaller, leaner, results driven agencies. Why? Because we would expose them.

My agency is based on transparency and results. We do not hold any retainers. We are paid on a campaign per campaign basis and only paid if we deliver ACTUAL RESULTS. Our fees are less than advertising but deliver quantifiable results. We have a dedicated in house production team that do all the legwork for the client, and we do not take discounts from the media owners and mark up secret hidden extras to the client. And because of this, the big agencies don’t want to know. They don’t want to work with us because it’s much easier for them to take their client’s money, have a few high end lunches with the media owners to “plan their media spend” and then bugger off to Cannes to congratulate themselves on how well they’ve all done. If Martin Sorrel is King of Media Land, it’s a shame his subjects don’t act on his words.

This leads me on to your next article; DIVERSITY.

Fabulous to see you’ve launched a campaign with Mother to “highlight the importance of equality in the creative industries during Cannes Lions”. An admirable effort, and one we actively support daily, specifically as we are a team of predominantly women. But looking at the headline I was momentarily excited as I thought “Diversity” meant the inclusion of agencies outside the M25 into Media Land, the ability or platform for us smaller, niche agencies to have a voice that is heard above the roar of the “Lions”. Sadly your initiative seems to boil down to gender. Again. I hope this email might inspire you to broaden your remit.

And finally: Cannes. Entertaining budgets. Schmoozing. The incestuous world of Media. Your article, same issue, page 17: “For some agencies, the only way is Essex”.

I have written in big, bold sharpie, “THIS IS US” next to this article to highlight it to the rest of the team when they come to read this issue. Again, if we could afford her, we’d sign up Maisie McCabe right away. We feel every single bit of pain highlighted in this article on a daily basis and our passion, it seems, is the same as that of Atomic, championed in this article. Kudos to you for actually featuring an agency that is a bit left field, but I do believe Canvey is still within the M25.

RGM is based in Plymouth. A million miles outside the M25. In the south West. By the Sea. We have had a statement on our website for the last seven years stating that we are passionate about providing a meaningful, well paid Media Career for talented individuals in the South West who don’t want to substitute their quality of life for a career in Media. We spend two days a week out of the office meeting our clients, usually in London, but as far afield as Holland. Every single word of Maisie’s article could have been written by me. The sentence about “founder owned agencies feeling like they’re on a night out with a bunch of university friends who all went into finance” could not be more sharply painful for me to read. As a small agency we don’t inflate fees, we don’t get agency discounts, we don’t have hidden costs we charge back to our brands at inflated rates, we charge a fair and transparent fee for what we do. We have modest offices outside of London and we work hard every single day to keep costs down so that we can deliver more to the client. Of course we can’t afford to send the entire team to Cannes to “drink rose for the week”. We can’t even afford to take clients on mega high end swanky lunches, firstly because we are too busy delivering their campaigns for them, and secondly because those lunches are paid for by only one person at the end of the day. The client. And we simply can’t live with ourselves if we rip them off in that way. And for this reason, we are pariahs. We can’t compete so we are not in the game. Yet we offer EXACTLY what Martin Sorrell claims this industry needs right now. And it’s not just the agencies. Brand managers are so used to being massaged and schmoozed by the big agencies, they look at our meagre offer of a good honest day’s work on their behalf as if it was something unsavoury they trod in as they got out of their agency account Uber. Even the venerable Keith Weed, wielding the mighty Unilever Sword Of Truth, says that “people need to care about what you’re talking about. There’s a real premium on getting people’s attention in a cluttered world”. Well said Keith. Our words exactly. Quite literally. They’ve been on our website for years.

I’ve personally made it my mission to try to speak to Keith Weed every day for the last seven years. I’ve got absolutely nowhere close. I appreciate he is currently in the process of shedding half his 3,000 agencies that work with him worldwide in order to save money, but my point is, if he’d picked up the phone to me just once in the last seven years, he wouldn’t have needed all those expensive agencies in the first place.

What easier way to get people to care about what you’re talking about than letting them win some of the stuff you are trying to flog them? What easier way to “get their attention in a cluttered world” than giving them FREE STUFF ?

More words of wisdom. Same issue. This time from Craig Mawdsley. “Marketers are charged with building brands but are under pressure to deliver now”. I’m fairly certain that if a brand was given immediate coverage in any of the major media areas we work on , and got instant fresh, relevant , hot data as an immediate result, and paid less than they would have done for a direct ad, they might actually be quite pleased. THIS IS WHAT WE DO AND WE DO IT BLOODY WELL.

So, Claire. Your challenge. It would be SO REFRESHING to see Campaign put its money where its mouth is. How about showcasing all those smaller agencies struggling to break through the sound of all those lions roaring away in the sun after their fat cat liquid lunches of several gallons of rose? How about showcasing agencies who ARE ABLE TO DELIVER exactly what Martin Sorrel, Keith Weed, Maisie McCabe and Craig Mawdsley are calling for? How about showcasing all those people , employees, young guns, media hopefuls , who are working away outside the M25 to deliver great campaigns that deliver CRACKING results? How about making a real difference and actually doing something positive to accelerate the change all these articles are calling for in your magazine ? AND WHY NOT START WITH ME AND THE RGM TEAM ?

About

We specialise in UK sales and promotional campaigns using TV, national newspapers, magazines and on-line. RGM works on behalf of national brands who want to promote their business to a large readership/audience through competitions in national media.

Disclaimer: For the absolute avoidance of doubt, RGM simply purchases online advertising space direct from the titles. RGM then uses this purchased itinerary to run its own competitions and promotions. These competitions are multi brand competitions owned by RGM. RGM does not work on behalf of the titles and does not intend to be seen as a partner of them in any way.